Healthy environment, healthy fisheries, and social justice go hand in hand. Fishermen and coastal activists launched the T. Buck Suzuki Environmental Foundation in 1981 to continue Buck Suzuki's legacy. Follow this link for more information on Buck Suzuki, including a short video on his life.

The world’s oceans are choking on plastic. This year up to twenty million tons of plastic bags, food wrappers, bottles, straws, styrofoam, plastic fishing gear, and other plastic products will cascade into the sea. A recent study in the Strait of Georgia found over 3000 plastic micro-particles per cubic metre of water. The throw-away plastic economy fuels this crisis must be fundamentally restructured.

Help us prevent a repeat of the Massive Herbicide Spray along the Skeena CN Rail Corridor

The area of the lower Skeena where the spraying took place too close to water is extremely important to pink and chum salmon; their eggs were/will be present at the time spraying was/is being done. Juvenile coho, steelhead and chinook salmon are also known to be present.

See photos of the beautiful lower Skeena marred by dead vegetation alongside the water, where we would expect to see 5-10 meter pesticide free zones, a report by a leading aquatic toxicologist on the risk it poses to salmon and more. - here.

2018- 2019 Buck Suzuki Legacy Bursary is open for applications

We are offering a bursary of $1000 for the 2018-2019 academic year

Open to students with family in the fishing industry and studying disciplines across fisheries, marine biology, resource management, or other relevant programs to the work of the foundation

In addition to this funding, the successful applicant can be connected with a mentor from the T.Buck Suzuki Foundation to help with guidance through their academic endeavours

Populations are declining in rural zones and increasing in urban centres.

Marine-related decision-making is scattered and could benefit from an integrated, multi-stakeholder approach.

An unleashed coastal economy will not only strengthen coastal communities, it will strengthen the BC economy.

Caught up in Catch Shares

Individual Transferable Quotas (ITQs) became a dominant management tool for Canada's Pacific fisheries in the 1990s, but do they really work as advertised?

Ecotrust and T. Buck Suzuki Environmental Foundation have analyzed in-depth the impacts of catch shares, particularly ITQs, on BC fisheries and coastal communities. Data proves that ITQ systems have made fishing more expensive, complicated and less safe. The unemployment rate has increased and there are less opportunities for new entrants into this sector. The ones entering fishing have limited financial viability.

We are at a key decision point for our fisheries. We need to ask ourselves how commercial fishing’s $300 million in annual landed value should be distributed so coastal communities thrive. More information

Understanding Values in Canada’s North Pacific

Commercial fisheries are instrumental in BC’s formal economy, but they contribute to other intangible values that are not contemplated in studies of landed and wholesale values.

Hence, Ecotrust Canada and T. Buck Suzuki Environmental Foundation joined forces in 2013 to make visible such complexity by interviewing fishermen in Prince Rupert and Lax Kw’alaams.

The study reveals there is more to fishing than profit margins: (1) local and international equipment and supplies businesses benefit from commercial fisheries, (2) trading and gifting seafood in the community support food security, (3) it is a lifestyle that cultivates stewardship and education through connecting people and the environment, and (4) fishermen transmit key life skills to future generations.

Our findings depict a window of opportunity to develop more holistic policies to help build resilient coastal communities and protect natural resources. More information

This website was made possible in part through a generous grant from Mountain Equipment Co-operative - www.mec.ca